Get latest message (row) per user in Laravel

Question

TL;DR: Need latest message from each sender.

In my Laravel application I have two tables:

Users:

• id
• name

Messages:

Answer 1

Why not simply accessing the messages, like this -

// get the authenticated user
$user = \Auth::user(); 

// find the messages for that user
return User::with('message')->find($user->id)->messages;

Answer 2

This is the most "Eloquent way" I have found of doing this:

In User model:

public function messages() {
    return $this->hasMany(Message::class, 'recipient_id');
}

public function latestMessagePerSender()
{
    return $this->messages()
        ->whereNotExists(function ($query) {
            $query->from('messages AS m2')
                ->whereRaw('m2.sender_id = messages.sender_id')
                ->whereRaw('m2.created_at > messages.created_at');
    });
}

Then just $user->latestMessagePerSender

Answer 3

I found this solution in another forum, I think that is what you were looking for. I post it so it can be useful for other users

        DB::select('
            SELECT t1.*
            FROM messages AS t1
            INNER JOIN
            (
                SELECT
                    LEAST(sender_id, recipient_id) AS user_id,
                    GREATEST(sender_id, recipient_id) AS recipient_id,
                    MAX(id) AS max_id
                FROM messages
                GROUP BY
                    LEAST(sender_id, recipient_id),
                    GREATEST(sender_id, recipient_id)
            ) AS t2
                ON LEAST(t1.sender_id, t1.recipient_id) = t2.sender_id AND
                   GREATEST(t1.sender_id, t1.recipient_id) = t2.recipient_id AND
                   t1.id = t2.max_id
                WHERE t1.sender_id = ? OR t1.recipient_id = ?
            ', [auth()->guard('api')->user()->id, auth()->guard('api')->user()->id]);

original post: https://laracasts.com/discuss/channels/laravel/get-the-latest-message-of-chat-model-with-mysql-just-cannot-get-the-idea-how-to-do-this?page=1#reply=392529